Farmworkers are among the most vulnerable and invisible partners in the coffee supply chain, yet – they are directly responsible for ensuring the success of each year’s harvest. Las Manos del Café is the first project of its kind that aims to develop and implement mechanisms targeted specifically at elevating the well-being and socio-economic livelihood of farmworkers. By ensuring the basic needs of farmworkers are being met, we are creating a more dignified and socially viable workforce in the coffee sector.
Meet the needs of farmworkers, producers, and local organizations, while identifying and implementing solution to make employment within the coffee industry more socially viable.
The main hypothesis of the pilot is that by improving working conditions, giving farmworkers better access to information and offering training programs for farmworkers, small-scale farm owners would be able to attract and retain qualified labor on their farms. And, therefore increase the quality and quantity of their coffee.
The Aguadas Cooperative is partnering with RGC Coffee (importer), Expocafe (exporter), SCA, UTZ, Fair Trade USA, CRECE, Solidaridad and the Luis-Jota Foundation to oversee and fund the Farmworkers Pilot.
This association of over 400 women coffee farmers came together to solve issues including lack of capital to use on their farms and to create an equitable working relationship with their husbands. Today, they are committed to producing high-quality coffee.
An association of organic women coffee growers invested in sustainable and organic coffee production. One of the main goals of the project is to ensure financial stability during the organic conversion process which can take up to 3 years.
ACEC is an association of 392 organic coffee farmers who promote and develop technologies that increase the production and yields of excellent organic coffees. The projects helps to attract conventional farms to convert to organic.
The focus with Granja La Esperanza is to promote specialty and microlot coffees from Colombia. La Esperanza has created a truly unique environment among their 3 model farms which serves as a leading worldwide example of microlot coffees.
